Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness

Download or read book Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness written by Rhodri Lewis and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An acclaimed new interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness is a radical new interpretation of the most famous play in the English language. By exploring Shakespeare's engagements with the humanist traditions of early modern England and Europe, Rhodri Lewis reveals a Hamlet unseen for centuries: an innovative, coherent, and exhilaratingly bleak tragedy in which the governing ideologies of Shakespeare's age are scrupulously upended. Recovering a work of far greater magnitude than the tragedy of a young man who cannot make up his mind, Lewis shows that in Hamlet, as in King Lear, Shakespeare confronts his audiences with a universe that received ideas are powerless to illuminate—and where everyone must find their own way through the dark.